


Loosen up

by GinevraJ



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Office, Boss/Employee Relationship, Flowers, Fluff, M/M, verkwan if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23758399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinevraJ/pseuds/GinevraJ
Summary: Mingyu needs a way to make his boss Choi Seungcheol be in a better mood so he can work less hours.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 9
Kudos: 95





	Loosen up

Mingyu let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair, stressed. He had been in there for too many hours and all he could think about was going home, having dinner and finally sleeping. He looked up and realized that half of his colleagues were still there, Seungcheol was giving them too much overtime and he didn't even understand why they could finish that the next day quietly. But no, they were all locked in there just because their boss was in a bad mood, which was always, but specifically those last few days had been much worse.

He moved his gaze to Seungcheol's office, who was concentrating on the screen in front of him as he calmly typed. The doors to his office were made of glass so he could see him from where he was sitting. The bad news was that Seungcheol could see them as well, so he couldn't be too distracted without him noticing.

He got up and walked slowly to the cafeteria to prepare some coffee as he was too tired. He saw Seungkwan there, also making coffee while eating some chocolates.

"Hi," he greeted him with a smile, Mingyu smiled back at him and walked over to the coffee machine. "It won't be long now before we can go home."

Mingyu turned to look at him with a smile, even though he was surprised that he was so happy because of the shitty day everyone was having.

"What's with the good mood?"

"My boyfriend sent me chocolates this morning," he replied with a smile. "They were on my desk when I arrived so I didn't mind too much when Choi said we would have to stay a couple more hours."

"Good for you," Mingyu muttered with a smile.

"Do you want one?" he asked, offering, Mingyu nodded and took one.

"So this thing with Vernon is serious?"

"Yes, well, I hope it is. He's great, you have to meet him someday."

"Whenever you want," Mingyu replied with a smile.

"I'm going to finish what I have left and go home quickly, you too, don't stay too long this is consuming." Mingyu laughed at that and nodded, then turned to see if his coffee was ready.

He would have liked to have a gift like that, at least he would be in the same mood as Seungkwan and he wouldn't be trying to think of different ways to make Seungcheol's fall down the stairs look like an accident.

He sighed as he realized that it would never look like an accident so he walked back to his desk, this time with his coffee in hand, ready to torture himself with another hour of work.

An hour turned into two hours as he couldn't finish anything and was beginning to wonder if it would be a better option for him to throw himself down the stairs. Because everyone was starting to leave and Mingyu really had to stop fantasizing about his couch because he was never going to finish what he was working on.

Finally, he finished and with a smile, he started to pack up all his things so he could go home. He heard the door to Seungcheol's office open and looked up curiously.

"Are you finished?" he asked absently as he glanced at some papers he had, he probably got out of his office to go scan them.

Mingyu looked around and realized that there was no one left in the office other than him so he assumed the question was directed at him.

"Yes," he replied self-consciously.

"Great, can you give me the document from yesterday's meeting?" he asked, looking up at him.

Mingyu opened his mouth but said nothing, he didn't have it, he thought he wouldn't ask for it for a few days since the meeting had only been the day before.

"Uhmmm... I haven't finished it."

He felt his heart skip a beat as he watched Seungcheol frown, which was quite typical of him.

"I want it first thing tomorrow morning on my desk," he muttered, then walked to the printer's room, relieving Mingyu more than he had thought.

He left the office as quickly as he could, he really thought he was going to tell him to stay there until he had it finished. He walked home because it really wasn't that far from the office and he always did. He didn't use his car every day, which didn't matter to him because he liked to walk a lot.

He had no one waiting for him at home like Seungkwan, but the couch was pretty comfortable and if he wasn't mistaken there was still some ice cream left in the fridge. He walked quietly and greeted the lady who had a flower shop near his house with a smile, he bent down a bit and petted the cat that always sat in the doorway. It was late so she was about to close. 

He continued to walk toward his house as he continued to think of different ways to stop Seungcheol from being a complete asshole, throwing him down the stairs was still one of his first options. If he couldn't walk to the office he couldn't tell them that they had to stay two more hours.

He stopped on his heels when he came up with a completely crazy idea. He went back and greeted the lady in the flower shop with a smile.

"Do you make deliveries?" he asked, looking around.

* * *

Seungcheol walked absentmindedly to his office, feeling calm when he saw that everyone was sitting at his desk working. Maybe he had gone overboard with the extra work the day before, but he needed those things and wasn't going to let everyone work less than they could when he was staying so many hours overtime.

He opened his eyes surprised when he looked up at his office and saw a large bouquet of flowers on his desk. He opened the door slowly, puzzled, and approached the bouquet to pick it up. It was beautiful.

_ 'Cheer up!' _

He couldn't help but smile slightly at the note in the bouquet. He turned to look at his workers and realized that everyone had turned their heads, clearly everyone was looking at him, probably waiting for some reaction.

Seungcheol was quite private with his life so none of his workers knew if he had a partner or not. They probably thought his partner had sent him that bouquet, and he didn't like his personal life interfering with his work.

But that bouquet didn't belong to anyone Seungcheol knew personally, it couldn't be. Especially not with that note.

After thinking about it for half the morning, he came to the conclusion that it would be from one of his employees, probably trying to keep him from putting in extra hours of work. But Seungcheol was not dumb.

* * *

Mingyu smiled when he saw Seungcheol put the bouquet of flowers in a vase in his office. He hadn't seen him smile because of the bouquet, but he certainly looked more relaxed. Although he would have liked to see him smile.

'What?' he thought to himself, shaking his head as he realized what he was thinking. 'I don't want to see him smile, I just want him to let me go home first.'

He tried to occupy his thoughts with work. He handed the document to Seungcheol later than he had asked, but he said nothing about it, which meant that his plan was working. Seungcheol was in a better mood.

When he returned home from work that day, he greeted the lady who owned the flower shop again, petted her cat, and went inside to ask for another bouquet of flowers.

"You must really care about this person." said the lady with a smile as she picked out the flowers to put in the bouquet.

"Yes," said Mingyu with a smile.

'I care a lot about the fact that he won't fire me.'

The next day there was another bouquet of flowers on Seungcheol's desk, he looked at Seungcheol as he picked up the flowers, he looked at them for a moment, and read the note.

_ 'You're going to get wrinkles on your forehead if you keep frowning, so relax a little :)'  _ That's what he put in the note the night before.

Again, he didn't see a smile on Seungcheol's face when he received the bouquet, but he did notice the fact that he stopped frowning as soon as he read the note.

He put it in the vase, replacing the one from the day before, and that day he didn't tell them to stay overtime like the day before.

After five consecutive days of Seungcheol receiving bouquets of flowers in his office, people started talking about it.

"Who could be spending all that money on Choi?" Jun asked incredulously.

"His girlfriend obviously," Seungkwan replied without giving it much thought.

"Or his mother. I can't imagine anyone putting up with him that long." Seokmin muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Are you crazy? Do you think Seungcheol would let someone send him flowers every day in his office for everyone to see? He clearly has no control over the situation."

Mingyu drank his coffee quietly as he listened to his colleagues theorize about it, all sitting at the cafeteria table during their break.

"But why in the office for everyone to see?"

"Can you imagine that he sends them to himself?" Minghao asked laughing, everyone laughed when they heard that.

"I don't think so, for what purpose?"

"Besides, why not at his house? If the person who sends him the flowers wants to give them to him, they probably know his address." Seungkwan gasped when he realized something.

"Do you think it's someone from the office?"

Mingyu choked on the coffee he was drinking, but his reaction, although exaggerated, was not noticed by the others, as they had all been surprised to hear that.

"Are you suggesting that someone here has a crush on Seungcheol?" Jun asked with an amused smile.

"Why not?"

"Well... Because he's Choi Seungcheol. You can't work for him and like him at the same time, those two things don't go together and they should never go together."

"At least he's in a better mood and we don't have to stay for overtime," Mingyu muttered with a shrug, everyone seemed to agree with that and after that comment, they decided to talk about something else because their boss's personal life was not exactly an entertaining topic.

Mingyu was able to leave for the weekend much more relaxed as Seungcheol hadn't given them so much work for Monday, his plan had worked excellently.

He decided not to think about it again now that he had realized that he sounded like a fucking villain.

On Monday morning Seungcheol had no bouquet of flowers on his desk and that surprised everyone more than Seungcheol, who simply sat at his desk like any other day.

"The streak of good humour is over guys," Seungkwan whispered as he walked past Jun's desk to drop off a piece of paper, which was in front of Mingyu's.

"I said that someone cannot be in love with Seungcheol for that long," Jun muttered with a smile.

Mingyu said nothing about it and went on with what he was doing.

In his defence, the flower shop was not open on Sundays, and on Saturday he didn't have time to go, but Seungcheol would have a bouquet of flowers the next day for sure.

So the next day Mingyu came into the office and smiled at the bouquet on Seungcheol's desk, this time it was bigger, to make up for the lost day.

But Seungcheol didn't show up to pick it up. Hours were passing and Seungcheol did not seem to be coming to work that day. He saw Minghao enter Seungcheol's office and pick up the flowers, and he came over when he passed by to go to the printer's room.

"It's weird that he didn't come, right? He never misses work."

"I know, he sent me an email saying that he had some personal business to take care of and that he wouldn't be able to come," said Minghao calmly as he looked at the bouquet of flowers, he was his assistant so he usually knew where Seungcheol was. "He told me to throw away the ones from Friday and put the new ones in the vase."

Mingyu raised his eyebrows in surprise at that, Seungcheol was worried about his flowers? He watched as Minghao pulled the note out of the bouquet so he could read it.

"It's so nice, I wonder who's taking the time to do this for him, I wish I had such a nice bouquet every morning on my desk," Minghao muttered as he went to throw away the old ones and put the new ones in the vase.

Mingyu smiled slightly and turned to go scan the papers he needed. Everyone went out early that day because there was no one to tell them that they had to stay extra hours or that they had to fill in all the hours. But Mingyu stayed until his shift was over because he really had to finish something Jun had asked him to do for the next day.

Still, he walked home quietly at the same time as always, smiled at the sight of the cat in front of the flower shop and bent down to pet it. Usually, Seungcheol didn't miss two days of work in a row so he decided to buy him a bouquet anyway, if he didn't go to work, in the end, Minghao could always put them in the vase.

"Hi." he waved cheerfully when he entered the store.

But his heart stopped when he saw how the person in the counter looked up from his phone and he met Seungcheol's dark eyes.

"Seun... Mr Choi? What are you...? Where's Mrs C-...?" he fell silent as he realized what he was about to say, and immediately realized the reason Seungcheol was there. 

"Mrs Choi? At the hospital," he answered calmly.

"Oh my god, is she all right?" he asked in alarmed when he heard that.

"Yes, it's nothing. I just had to take care of the store while she was gone." Seungcheol explained with a wave of his hand, trying to take importance to the matter.

"Well... I... I was coming to buy a bouquet... For my mother." he made it up at the last minute, all nervous and wanting the earth to swallow him up at that very moment.

Seungcheol looked at him with a raised eyebrow before he finally spoke and broke the tension in the air.

"Mingyu, I know it's you who sends me flowers."

"How?"

"Well, you are literally telling my mother every night, 'Tell them to deliver it to Choi Seungcheol's office." Mingyu opened his eyes surprised when he heard that, and for a moment he was completely blank, not knowing what to say.

"I..." he started talking without knowing exactly what he wanted to say. "It's not weird, I'm not a secret admirer or anything, I just..." he thought for a moment before finishing that sentence. "I just wanted to put you in a better mood, Mr Choi."

Seungcheol laughed slightly at that and Mingyu thought he had never seen him laugh, it was something to remember because he had a nice smile.

"I know, I didn't think you were in love with me or anything, don't worry," he said rolling his eyes and smiling slightly as if it were a stupid thing to think. "And forget about the formalities, I think after seven bouquets of flowers we are past that stage."

"Mr Choi... Why didn't you say anything if you knew it was me?" Mingyu asked suddenly, a question that Seungcheol apparently didn't expect because he took a moment to answer.

"Formalities, Mingyu, I just told you not to use them." he corrected him, Mingyu hadn't even noticed that he was still talking calling him by his surname, he assumed that it was what he was used to it since he was his boss.

"I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me?" he corrected himself, Seungcheol sighed and lowered his head, then ran a hand through his hair.

"Because... Because it made my mother very happy. She thinks you're my boyfriend or something. The first night you bought a bouquet for me, she called to ask me if I was seeing anyone. I said no. I was surprised by the bouquet but I called her to ask who sent it because obviously she knew something."

"And she told you it was me," Mingyu muttered, nodding slowly.

"She gave me a description of what you look like, it wasn't too hard to guess who you were, not many people are six feet tall."

"Hey, there are a lot of people who are six feet tall." he corrected him angrily as if that had been an insult, something that made Seungcheol laugh again.

Mingyu began to wonder if he could ask him to stop doing that, he was ruining Mingyu's image of him as a bad boss and was really starting to think he looked adorable. He was probably tired.

"Anyways, I'm sorry I made you spend so much money for a selfish reason, she looked so happy and I didn't want to tell her that we don't even know each other that well. So you don't need to buy me any more bouquets."

"That's why you knew you'd have a bouquet this morning?" Seungcheol looked at him surprised when he heard that. "Minghao told me that you had told him to put the new bouquet in the vase, but yesterday I didn't give you any and everyone assumed that there wouldn't be any more bouquets. I was surprised that you assumed that you had a new bouquet to put in the vase, but I guess your mother told you, right?"

"Yes. She called me to ask if I like the flowers you picked." Seungcheol muttered with a shrug and a slight smile.

"Well, then I suppose that will no longer be a problem."

"Yes, no more fl..."

"What flowers do you like best?" Mingyu interrupted with a smile, surprising Seungcheol.

"What?"

"Your mother won't have to worry about whether or not you like flowers anymore, why don't you pick them yourself?" Seungcheol looked at him in surprise and then laughed.

"Very funny, Mingyu, no more bouquets, I mean it."

"Why? They make your mother happy, and you're in a good mood, I have noticed. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Mingyu, don't..."

"How's your mother really doing?" he asked sincerely, approaching the counter to lean on it.

Seungcheol thought about it for a while before speaking.

"She's very old," he muttered thoughtfully, "her health is fragile and I have told her a hundred times to sell the shop, but she won't, and I can't exactly take care of the shop." he bent forward and put his elbows on the counter.

"What happened to her last night?"

"They don't know yet, they're doing tests, and I'm supposed to be with her in the hospital, but she asked me to come and look after the shop, because 'in forty years I haven't missed a single day of opening it, I have customers who are counting on me.'" he explained, imitating his mother's voice and making Mingyu laugh.

"It's good that you care so much about your mother, I know many men wouldn't."

"Well, I haven't got much so I prefer to treat what I have well," he said quietly and then took a break. "Do I really treat you guys so badly that you had to do all this to make me relax a bit?" he asked honestly, surprising Mingyu with the question.

"No, no, not at all," Seungcheol looked at him with a raised eyebrow when he heard that. "Well, I have heard some people complain about extra hours, but only some workers, I don't really care." he continued quickly, Seungcheol laughed at that, not believing what he had just said, and Mingyu followed.

At that moment they heard the door opening because of the bell of the store, the two of them turned their heads and saw no one enter, but when they looked down they saw the cat come in.

"Is it cold outside?" Seungcheol asked with a smile, the cat obviously didn't answer and simply went over to them to climb up to the counter and lie down between them.

Seungcheol stretched out a hand and began to pet it with a smile on his face. Mingyu didn't seem to want to take his eyes off of Seungcheol, he looked so good in the uniform of the store, that apron completely replacing the suits he always saw him in. His hair soft because he didn't use gel to fix back his fringe, it looked much softer, covering his forehead and falling over his eyes in small curls. But best of all was that smile he would never forget, probably the next day the two of them would go back to work and forget about it all. And if Mingyu no longer had the opportunity to send him bouquets of flowers then his chances of seeing him smile like that again were null.

He realized what he had just thought, there really wasn't going to be any more of that, Seungcheol was going to go back to being his boss and he would go back to being his employee. No bouquets, no notes, no smiles. He realized that he really did not care whether Seungcheol let them or didn't let them stay overtime, there was much more at stake just by sending Seungcheol flowers, and surprisingly, he didn't want to let go of any of those things.

So he reached out and before Seungcheol could do anything, Mingyu put one hand on the back of his neck and made him look up and then reach out and join his lips.

Seungcheol opened his eyes in surprise at the feeling and tried to pull away from him when the cat got scared and stood up to get away from them, but Seungcheol grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him even closer so that he would not pull away from him. He found himself smiling against his lips when he felt Seungcheol was kissing him back.

Seungcheol was kissing him. Mingyu never thought he would say that and feel so satisfied and happy with himself.

He separated from him only to turn around the counter and stand in front of him, resting both hands on the sides of Seungcheol's body and kissing him again. He felt that everything was perfect when Seungcheol lifted his hands and placed them around his shoulders, who opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, moving closer to him if possible.

The two separated slowly, keeping their distance and opening their eyes to one another. Mingyu tilted his head forward, making their noses practically touch.

"I think that after seven bouquets of flowers I can ask you out without being rejected, am I wrong?"

"Well, maybe I want to wait until the tenth bouquet," Seungcheol replied with a mocking smile.

"Twenty if you like, I don't mind, I can wait." Seungcheol looked at him surprised when he heard that and leaned forward to kiss him again.

Mingyu reciprocated and moved his hands to place them on Seungcheol's waist and move closer to him.

"No, I think seven is fine."

"How about ten? I'll give you the last one this Friday, on our date," he said with a smile, Seungcheol laughed at that.

"It's a deal," he muttered, caressing his shoulders. "And now?"

"Now..." Mingyu took one hand away from Seungcheol's body so that he could look at his watch. "Now I think it's time to close the store and pay your mother a visit, she must be alone in the hospital." Seungcheol looked at him surprised.

"Really?"

"Yes, I have to introduce myself properly if I'm going to take her son on a date. Especially if she's been helping me win you over for a week." Mingyu said with a smile, Seungcheol laughed at that.

"Okay, let's go."

Mingyu nodded and put his arms around Seungcheol's waist again to reach out and kiss him deeply. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i hope you liked it, feedback is appreciated :)


End file.
